UHG didn’t like the movie that the independent pharmacists made about them. I posted it as a comment on one of their pieces of public marketing. UHG went after Vimeo and Amazon Prime and the movie suddenly disappeared.
I still have it, though. 
Now you do too.
This is lengthy, but very explanatory. Thank You!
Yeah, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by saying that.
It’s better to watch it in a few sittings.
They are “numbers guys,” so we are lucky that they explain the math, but it’s a lot.
If anybody could explain drug pricing in under 2 hours, then these problems would be fixed by now. It’s intended to be so complex that no one can understand. It’s the worst. They make a really strong effort, but it is still very boring.
It’s a double edged sword. I hate that I paid $17 US for a bottle of humalog when it came out and with insurance it was $1,70 US
Now it’s hundreds of dollars and has outpaced inflation tenfold.
But the reality is that if there isn’t big money in it, no one will develop these new drugs insulins and new therapies.
If you look at how medicine in the US is set up, it’s all about making money, but money drives innovation.
I don’t have the answer, and as a type 1, I really know how damn expensive it is. I try to imagine a world where there was no money in medicine and we would still be on animal insulin.
@Timothy The above video is not about manufacturers, it is an explanation of the middle man. An example, a drug that costs say $700.00 for a year is charged out at $6500 by way of the middleman. (I don’t remember the exacts, but there are several cited, some are astronomically increased) All because of our middleman’s increase from manufacturer to us as the consumer. There is even more to it than just that. But we don’t see those added costs because we have copays and our companies or government mostly bear the costs.
Plus when a company or our government has to dish out more money for drugs than it should, it takes that away from money going into pensions etc.
Manufacturers are a problem here too of course. Why are Americans paying so much more than other countries is plain not fair. But if you look it up, the top ten companies in revenue in the nation now includes the middlemen companies, that’s a very serious problem.
AND because there is so much money in medications and gadgets for control, there is scarcely any money for finding a cure.
Actually pharmaceutical companies aren’t the ones who would develop cures. That generally is research by universities like Harvard and Duke and possibly Federal institutions.
Pharmaceutical companies are in the business of developing drug therapies. Now it’s possible that a pharmaceutical company will come up with a drug that will permanently treat autoimmune diseases.
As I have developed an autoimmune disease, Bullous pemphigoid. I’d be happy for a cure. It’s a very rare side effect of immunotherapy. Ain’t I lucky.
If you’re interested here’s a link.
So sorry to hear that you have been afflicted by something else autoimmune. It sounds like something that is harder to live with than T1.
Four years ago I was diagnosed with messenteric penniculitis, inflammation of the messentery (the organ that keeps the intestines in place). It is mostly diagnosed with a CT scan taken for an abdominal complaint. I’d had a pain where the appendix would normally be. Trouble was I’d not had an appendix since I was five years old. CT scan showed the inflammation. I was told that it was yet another autoimmune condition and found mostly in those with T1. Apparently they can do nothing for it. Fortunately, the severe pain went away and I haven’t had it since.
I don’t know how “rare” the diseases you all mention are, but this is the rare disease group. They are more rare than diabetes, so they are rare to me.
I don’t need more affordable, accessible health care. What I want is more informed and knowledgeable health care practitioners. I eschew all non-Medicare-required contact with “health professionals” and non-diabetes-required medication.
Poor care can be an impact/side effect of monopolization.
So much of what popular discourse blames on The Big Pharma Conspiracy is actually a problem caused by the PBM system, which afaict exists only to siphon off money without adding any value and costing all of us millions. I remember some years back hearing from some spokesperson holding forth in favor of the system that the main reason it couldn’t and shouldn’t be eliminated was that it would cost a whole lot of people their jobs. Seriously, that was the reason.
So explanatory
The administrative burden of healthcare is real bad. That’s one of the things that the doctors complain about a lot.
I feel like the administrative burden of diabetes on me, as a patient, is unreconcilably bad. I don’t know if it’s worse for doctors or patients because it ebbs and flows on my end. As admin burden increases, they need to hire more people and an increasing number of people are suddenly “invested” in the system remaining “■■■■-ified.” That’s an actual term the docs are using, “shitification,” of healthcare.
DOJ is going to take a stab at fixing that, but I don’t know how they can fix it. It’s pretty well shitified.
I’ve looked at my plan’s formulary, and wondered how anyone could keep track of all those drugs. It makes sense to have some centralization of that function, which is what a PBM ought to be doing instead of just obfuscating and siphoning. Please note that my seeing a function for a PBM in no way means I have any sympathy for the existing PBMs.
I don’t think they will get rid of PBMs outright.
Prob the best they can do upfront is break off the pharmacy leg.
That will hurt CVS more than UHG.
My heart wants UHG’s ability to exercise coercion over doctors disrupted. But I don’t think anybody has a solid plan about how to do that. There’s some experimentation happening there.
A lawsuit was just launched against one state for passing legislation that was unfavorable to the PBMs.
CVS took a strike against upcoming legislation against them in Louisiana. They are sneaky bastards. They are texting patients trying to get them to call their legislative members. The guys are mad and say that a HIPAA violation and not an honest use of patient data.
CVS has their own PBM CareMark which sadly became mine this year. I don’t know how long it’s been in existence but they are not ready for prime time.
